Only
gigantic causes can account for the gigantic phenomena of this lava-
flow. The eruption travelled forty miles in a straight line, or
sixty, including sinuosities. It was from one to three miles broad,
and from five to two hundred feet deep, according to the contours of
the mountain slopes over which it flowed. It lasted for thirteen
months, pouring out a torrent of lava which covered nearly 300
square miles of land, and whose volume was estimated at thirty-eight
thousand millions of cubic feet! In 1859 lava fountains 400 feet in
height, and with a nearly equal diameter, played on the summit of
Mauna Loa. This eruption ran fifty miles to the sea in eight days,
but the flow lasted much longer, and added a new promontory to
Hawaii.
These magnificent overflows, however threatening, had done little
damage to cultivated regions, and none to human life; and people
began to think that the volcano was reformed. But in 1868 terrors
occurred which are without precedent in island history. While Mrs.
L. was giving me the narrative in her graphic but simple way, and
the sweet wind rustled through the palms, and brought the rich scent
of the ginger plant into the shaded room, she seemed to be telling
me some weird tale of another world.
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